Return of Yami Marik
by Izumi Ishtar
Summary: Marik's evil side returns after he has a mysterious dream of his own death...
1. Default Chapter

CHAPTER ONE- The First Sign

By Izumi Ishtar

Laughter...I hear laughter...

I got up off of the cold floor I had awoken on and slowly, hesitantly made my way through the dark corridors. I had no idea where I was; it was a miracle I didn't crash into any walls. But something was driving me toward that laughter like a homing , deep, harsh laughter...it sounded familiar...almost like...but there was no way...

Light suddenly blinded me. I stumbled back. When I could see again, I lay before a door. It was made of some kind of heavy stone, as the floor and walls were. I got to my feet and cautiously touched the door. It was cold and rough, with ancient Egyptian carvings covering the majority of it. This door seemed familiar as well...and as I stood there, translating the text to myself, a sudden feeling of dread overcame me. The very last line, near the bottom of the door read:

"Here awaits the evil within."

The evil within. The laughter...it had come from behind this door. I don't know what came over me, but before I could stop myself, as if my body moved on its own, I shoved it open with suprisingly little effort. It swung away to reveal a dark, torchlit room, the walls also stone and covered in Egyptian texts I recognized from reading in my childhood. At first, I didn't see or hear anything, save the flames dancing eerily on the walls. It was silent; the mysterious cackling had stopped. But just then, in the corner, beyond the flickering light's reach, something moved. A dark, evil something. I tried to back off, but my legs had frozen the moment I'd seen it...

The cold, deep laughter started up again as the thing stepped into the flame's light. My eyes went wide when I saw it, and I turned and fled from the room, racing blindly down the pitch black halls. The laughter grew louder the faster I ran...

My mind was racing faster than my feet. Had I just seen...? It couldn't be! He was banished! But he had been there, his expression nastily joyful at the sight of me...it was imprinted in my mind, as clear and vivid as if I were still standing there staring at him, rather than running as far away as possible...

Smack. I fell back onto the stone floor with a loud crack, skinning my palms as I thrust them out behind me to break the impact...I had, in my preoccupation, run into a wall. My face throbbed, and my nose was bleeding. I had been so stupid to--

I froze. The laughter was right behind me. I scrambled to my feet and wheeled around. There, before me in the darkness, about five feet off the ground, was an eye. A glowing eye. The Millennium symbol.

It drew closer. I backed off slowly, watching it in horror as it rose and fell, approaching me. The thing's footsteps echoed through the corridor. It was only about two feet from me now...

My back hit the wall. I had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. I was shaking uncontrollably, my face dripping with blood and sweat...and just then, a hand shot out and gripped my throat. I couldn't move...I couldn't breathe...was this the end? I felt hot tears drip down my face as well...all the things I was leaving...my sister...my brother...my beloved girlfriend...all this would be lost...this was it...my death by the one thing I feared the most...

"Prepare to join your father, Marik."

My Yami. I flinched and, with all the strength I could muster, said two words to him.

"I'm sorry."

I felt his grip loosen, but I was already slipping into unconsciousness. It was hard to stay awake...but something inside me was giving me strength. Hope. Was he going to spare me?Would he perhaps just lock me away, and take my body back? But as I thought this, it seemed better if he would kill me...it would be better than having to suffer through the pain...

I heard the distinct sound of a dagger being unsheathed. I shut my eyes. My life was flashing before me...my childhood...the anguish I had put the very Pharaoh I was sworn to protect through...how forgiving they had been...and I would never get a chance to repay them for it...

And then it came. Cold metal shot straight through my stomach. I screamed. Screamed louder than I had ever before. The greatest of agony filled me...of both pain and sorrow...

...He had decided to kill me as he had done my father...

Father...the very last thing I thought of before my soul was lost to the cold hand of death...

I gasped and awoke in a cold sweat, looking around frantically, as if I were expecting to see something ominous glaring at me through the darkness. Nothing. Nothing save the grey-white curtains on my bed, through which golden sunlight filtered and fell on my shivering hands...

It was morning.

"A dream...", I whispered to myself, "It was a dream..."

I sat up slowly, wiping the sweat off my face with the back of my hand absentmindedly, contemplating the meaning of what I had just experienced, while my body relaxed from the adrenaline rush it had just recieved. I drew a blank as to what it's meaning was, but what I did know for certain was that it's 'death simulation' was by no means a good thing...

An icy numbness was eating at me inside...this unsettling feeling that something wasn't right inside my subconscious...it was the fact that my dark half had been in it. He had been sent away long ago, by the Pharaoh himself...I had been able to recooperate following his banishment, having bought a house away from Egypt to start a life of my own...in my habit of traveling, I had met my girlfriend Izumi...was she in danger...? Was this dream a warning of some kind...?

....was it possible that Yami Marik, having wielded the Millennium Rod, an Item capable of manipulating his own prison, had some kind of power to escape the Shadow Realm because of this...?

I shook my head, jerking myself out of deep thought, and pulled back the curtains on my bed, letting the light flood in to calm me. It was impossible. He couldn't break free...not after the Pharaoh had weakened him so much...and yet...and yet...

I stood up slowly, slipped into my bathrobe, and walked out on the balcony overlooking the island's enormous cliffs, which dropped into the very sea where I had picked up Bandit Keith as one of my first Rare Hunters. A shiver shot down my spine as I recalled it painfully...I never wanted to be that person again...

The soft ocean breeze picked up suddenly, and whipped at my face and sent my frazzled hair flying behind me. Enormous waves crashed and receded fifty feet below where I stood, leaning on the wood rail, gazing out at the endless realm of blue that glimmered before me...

A storm was approaching. I felt it in the air.

"Guess I can't ride until later..." I said jokingly to myself, turning and going inside just as a torrential downpour began.

There was nothing left to do now but go back to bed for a few hours and hope that my paranoid conscience was wrong...

....................

"Has it been raining like that all morning?"

"'Fraid so...I know you were planning to go riding today..."

"It's okay...weather can't be helped..."

I yawned and leaned on the table, staring gloomily out at what just this morning had been a bright, sunny sky. It was now almost completely pitch-black, and the rain pounded on the windows relentlessly, sounding like the house was being barragged by millions of tiny rocks.

"Weather channel said it's a tropical storm." Izumi said, making me jump a little as she refilled my coffee mug and sat down beside me. Tropical storms were very strong on the island and sometimes even knocked the power out for hours, even days at a time...we usually got past the boredom by playing Duel Monsters by flashlight or something like that...but part of me wanted the place to go dark for another reason. It would be a perfect time to tell her about my dream...


	2. Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO- The Voice

_...kill......kill her...._

I jumped, accidently splattering my t-shirt with hot coffee and managing somehow to inhale it as well. I slammed my mug down and coughed uncontrollably, making Izumi look up from her newspaper in sudden concern.

"Are you okay, Malik-Sama...?"

I nodded, trying desperately to clear my throat of the super caffiennated crap enough to speak. But what would I tell her...? 'Oh, honey, I just heard a voice in my head that said to kill you.' Yeah. That would go over well...

"I...I'm okay....", I managed to get out in a hoarse voice," I just...remembered something important I forgot to do....can you...excuse me...?"

She gave me an odd look, (Basically as if I had sprouted two more heads and were Riverdancing around the room singing nursery rhymes), but nodded anyway and went about reading again. I smiled guiltily, and, feeling rather bad that I had lied to her, stood up and made my way upstairs to my room again; one, to put on a shirt that didn't have a huge coffee stain on it, and two, to figure out why I was hearing homocidal voices, which I figured is better done in seclusion...(Thus why I locked the door behind me.)

My room, which just this morning had been filled with brilliant sunlight, was now dull and eerie looking, the walls alive with the shadows of trees blowing around through the rain-spattered windows. I stepped gingerly over to the bed, my footsteps creaking on the old wooden floor beneath the lavender carpet, my eyes adjusting to the darkness ever so slowly.

As I sank down on the bed, my thoughts as gloomy as the steely sky outside, my entire body twitched, then just went completely numb. I shivered and fell limply on to the sheets. I couldn't move. I stared at the ceiling, which danced with pale, blurry forms of branches, while I tried not to panic. Was I dying? Why couldn't I move? Why didn't it hurt...?

I spoke too soon. A pulsing, blinding pain shot down my spine, then back up, stopping in my right temple. I heard a scream pierce the musty atmosphere, and it took a few seconds to register as my own. The pain spread, making my head feel as if someone had lodged a dagger in my brain. I managed somehow to sit up, burying my face in my shaking hands. It was horrible...I started to feel nauseous...

_...you can't hold me back forever..._

That voice...the same one from before...it was so familiar...

"Leave me alone..." I moaned, "Get out of my head..."

_...kill her...the Pharaoh approaches...I must KILL HER..._

_T_he voice rang loud in my ears, too much for my tired brain to handle.

"Shut....up....." I pressed my hands tightly over my ears, the pain worsening with every word...

_...I said kill her...kill her...KILL HER!!!!_

"NO!!!! SHUT UP!!!!!!"

_...you know you need me...kill her and the Pharaoh's power is yours..._

It wouldn't stop. It just kept ordering me around, telling me to kill Izumi...why was she such an obstacle...?

_...kill her, Marik...you know you want to...do it...do it for me..._

"Do it....for you...?"

_...yes...for me...the real you..._

The real me. That phrase awakened me to what I was really fighting. I slowly raised my head to look at my reflection in the window. And there it was.

_...you see...i never really left you..._

There on my forehead, glowing brightly as the sun had been before the storm, was the Eye. The telltale sign. Yami Marik was returning...

"GET AWAY!!! GET OUT OF MY BODY!!! HAVEN'T YOU TORMENTED ME ENOUGH???"

His deep, harsh laugh seemed to echo throughout the room.

_...Marik...I will never have tortured you enough...not until I gain my rightful place as Pharaoh..._

To my horror, my hand moved on it's own, reaching for the drawer in my bedside table. Did he know what I kept in there...?

_...of course I know...it's common sense to have a self defense weapon in your room...hehhehheh...._

He opened the drawer slowly. I shivered, then flinched as I spotted the gleam of a dagger emerge from it. He raised it to my face, so close I could see my frightened reflection in it, then dropped it in my lap.

_...if you don't kill her...I will..._

"No.....you can't......."

_.....for once you're right.....I can't......yet....._

I felt the feeling rush back into my hand--

_....but mark my words, Marik.....I WILL be back....when the Eye of Ra shines for the final time...hahahaha....AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!_

His voice faded slowly into my subconscious, and the rest of my body regained it's feeling. I collapsed back on to the bed, breathing heavily, and shut my eyes. The pain in my head lessenned quickly to nothing...he wasn't strong enough to fully overtake me yet...

I lay there for over an hour, trying desperately to figure out what he had said...

"When the Eye of Ra shines for the final time..."

I was once again left in the dark. But I would find out just what he meant by it sooner than I had expected...


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three: Kaiba's Mistake

The storm lasted three days. Three dark, tedious, restless days. The power had failed some time while I had been in my room. After suppressing the feelings of impending doom that had welled up within me enough to at least live my life, however short it may be, I walked (Or tripped rather, over my own feet...) downstairs to the livingroom. But before I could even get to a flashlight, or any light for that matter, something rammed into my side with the force of a flying cinderblock.

"What the hell...?"

I was flat on my back, stunned, with someone lying on top of me...sobbing into my chest...it took me a few moments to realize who it was...

"Izumi...?"

She looked up at me fearfully, her eyes filled with tears, and nearly choked me to death as she threw her arms around me in a desperate, frightened hug. I pulled her into a tight embrace and rubbed her back comfortingly.

"What is it, Bur Hemt?" I said softly as she put her chin on my shoulder, calming down a bit now that she was with me, "What's got you so upset...?"

"Malik-sama.....it.....it tried to kill me....."

About 20 things flashed through my mind at once, none of them very comforting for neither me nor her. But I kept my cool, kept my mouth shut. I felt her shivering against me, but she continued nonetheless.

"This thing......this shadowy thing....it said it was going to kill me...said it was going to stab me in my sleep.....that I'd never know..."

It was like someone had stabbed a dagger of pure ice into my stomach. My evil half...it _had_ to be...

"What...did this thing do...?"

She sniffed and looked up at me. I could see the same cold fear in her eyes that had been in my own in that knife...she gripped the back of my shirt, and with great difficulty, almost like something was holding back the words, she whispered slowly...

"It...just stood there...with this...glowing eye on it's head..."

There was no denying it. Yami Marik was after her. Seeing the look of astonishment on my face at her description, she burst into tears again.

"I don't wanna die...I don't wanna die!!!!" she sobbed, throwing her arms around me again. I hugged her tightly...I wouldn't let him get to her...

"I won't let him..." I promised her, holding back tears of my own, "I won't let him take you away..."

The darkness seemed to swallow all reality as we held each other for what seemed an eternity, not wanting to let go, not wanting to risk losing each other to the shadows...

We spent the next two days playing Duel Monsters and walking around outside as the storms died down, and the nights curled up in my bed, me still pondering when the "Eye of Ra" would shine, and Izumi sleeping soundly at the fact that I was there to prevent her being stabbed during the night.

Around noon on the third day, just as my Dark Magician killed her Summoned Skull, the lights flickered back on. And no less than two seconds after that, there was a knock at the front door...

The knocking turned to violent banging as I got up, blinking the sudden flow of light from my eyes, and opened the door.

"Marik!!!! Long time no see, bud!!!!"

Joey Wheeler stood beaming at me on the porch. I blinked.

"Joey...? What are you doing here...?" I asked slowly, not able to think of any reason he'd have showed up without calling first. But my question was answered no sooner had I thought it. A tall, dark-haired someone wearing a white jacket appeared at his shoulder and shoved him out of the way indignantly.

"Get out of my way, Wheeler, I have business to take care of." snarled Seto Kaiba, turning and glaring at me.

"What do you want with me, Kaiba?" I asked, staring up at him curiously. He scoffed.

"It's not that I _want_ anything to do with you...but I've come to invite you to my next tournament, to be held in a remote location that will remain undisclosed until all acceptable duelists arrive at the port. Yes, we'll be taking a boat, Wheeler..." Kaiba shifted his glare to a surprised looking Joey at his feet.

"And what does this have to do with me...?"

I held out a hand to help Joey up, then leaned casually on the doorway once he had scrambled to his feet.

"Only the Battle City finalists are invited, Marik." a younger voice said from around the proximity of my waist, making me jump. I looked down to see Mokuba smiling up at me, carrying Kaiba's huge metal suitcase. I smiled back, glad that he hadn't been corrupted by Kaiba's antisocial nature, and then offered to help him with his load. He shook his head politely.

"It's okay...Seto doesn't want me letting anyone else carry it..."

"Mokuba, don't let your guard down...deranged, two-sided mental cases like him aren't to be trusted..."

It took everything in me not to let a string of curses out at him. I wanted to know what he was inviting me to; I couldn't blow it with one violent outburst...

"Shut yer snobby face, Kaiba! He ain't dat kinda person no more..." Joey said defensively. I gave him a thankful look. I couldn't get mad...I had to stay cool...

"Joey," Kaiba drawled,"...he controlled your mind and turned you against your friends...and you're going to trust him??"

Mokuba bobbed on his heels uncomfortably. I could tell he was afraid to say anything against his brother's opinion...which is why I was surprised when he spoke up.

"Seto," he said, giving his brother the big puppy eyes that even someone as cold-hearted as Kaiba couldn't resist, "Stop bringing that stuff up...you're hurting Marik..."

"Ha!! That's a laugh...us hurting Marik...?? Do you know how many people he's hurt in his life??"

"But Seto...!"

Mokuba looked desperate, grasping for words he couldn't find.

"Look," Kaiba snarled, pointing an accusing finger in my face, "This slime is not worthy of even walking the earth! He has committed such unspeakable crimes that even his own father would have hated him! If Marik hadn't killed him, that is...but who's to say the old man wasn't just as as loony..."

I gritted my teeth angrily. He was going too far now...

"Shut up, Kaiba...shut up if you know what's good for you..."

He shot me a withering look over his shoulder, then turned to face me, an evil smirk spreading across his face as an idea dawned on him.

"What's wrong, Marik?" he taunted," Think your daddy might come back to haunt you...?"

I shut my eyes tightly, my fingernails digging deep into my palms. The anger was becoming unbearable...my head was screaming with curses right now...my body shook with rage...

"Shut up, Kaiba...just shut up...."

But he persisted.

"And what are you going to do to me...? Run to your mommy? Oh wait, you can't, she's dead too!! You murdered her too, I suppose...? Didn't want her in your way while you dominated the world, pushing away all your insecurity, hiding all the shame of being born into such a family of bloodthirsty, sadistic freaks??"

My body moved on its own. In a blur of motion, I felt my fist collide with Kaiba's face with a sickening crack, and when he stumbled back, seeing the opening, I leapt forward and wrapped my hands around his throat. He turned pale, the life slowly starting to drain out of his eyes; he groped vainly at my enraged grip, but I was not about to let go, not for anything. I felt warm blood drip down my hands. I had made him bleed....it was a start...

"No one insults my family and lives to tell about it...," I hissed, watching in horrible pleasure as he began to lose consciousness before me, "...drill that into your head, you unworthy imbecile..."

"Big Brother, NO!!!!!"

Mokuba bounded forward and tried to break my hold on Kaiba. Joey just stood there, frozen in shock, looking like he was terrified to even move.

"Please, please let my brother go, Marik..." Mokuba pleaded, tears filling his huge eyes and dripping down his face as he flinched and held back a sob, "I don't want him to die!!"

If it weren't for that single plead for mercy, I probably _would_ have killed Kaiba. But as I glared at his little brother, who was sitting in the dirt before me, crying uncontrollably, I was suddenly shoved back into reality, as if someone had taken a great big stick and hit me over the head. All the rage left me. I let go of Kaiba.

He gasped and fell to his knees, clutching at his chest and staring at the ground in shock. I backed off. What had I just done...?

**_You almost killed him, Marik..._**said a voice in my mind, and at the time I didn't realize what it was, **_but you couldn't do it, could you...? Could you...? Could you...?_**

I jammed my hands over my ears again as the voice grew louder...stronger...

_**You were so close...but you couldn't do it...you were too weak...**_

"Shut up," I muttered, "Leave me alone..."

It was just like before..._exactly_ like before...the blazing pain returned twice as horrible as last time...I knew what was coming next...

_**Weak...weak...WEAK...**_

"Leave me alone...!"

_**Weak...just like your father...and just like your will...**_

"Shut up...shut up and get out of my head...!!!!"

I was too distressed to notice Joey and Mokuba's frightened looks, and Kaiba's suspicious glare. Too distressed...and too frightened myself...

_**You're weak, Marik...stop lying to yourself...you'll see once I finally emerge again...after all this time...**_

I looked up for about a millisecond. All three were staring at me, watching me shake horribly, watching me trying to will myself to die, watching me go insane before them...I had to tell them to get away...to get as far away as possible...

But just as I opened my mouth to warn them, my hand went numb...then my shoulder...then my entire arm...

_**...you'll never warn them in time...you'll never stop me now...there's nothing to stop me now...**_

"Shut up," I moaned, digging my nails into my scalp, firmly believing that it would somehow make the pain stop, "...shut up...shut up....SHUT UP!!!!"

But I heard the voice still. And this time, it was as if it were whispering in my ear, standing right next to me...and I felt the cold hand of his touch my shoulder...

_**...it's my turn...say goodbye to your friends...and say goodbye to your life.**_

****That was it. If I didn't do something now, everything I knew would be gone...and if I did somehow manage to regain my body...what would I have to live for...?

What could I do? I did the only thing I could do. I ran.


	4. Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR- Lost

By Izumi Ishtar

It was dark when I awoke. At first I didn't move. I just lay there spread eagled, my face buried in the dirt and grass. Why bother getting up...? It was better for me to die alone than find my way back home and kill everyone else with me...

Nonetheless, I let out a muffled sob and pushed myself up slowly. Where was I? I could barely see my hand in front of my face, much less anything around me...I'd have to rely on my instincts to survive until morning...

I sat up and groped around for some twigs and leaves, then pulled out my lighter and made a small fire. As the flame flickered to life before me, I saw that I was in a forest...

Had I run that far?

The forest was about 3 miles from the house...there was no way I would make it back in less than an hour...and that's all I could risk with it being so dark...

I sensed things watching me through the brush, watching me with their little yellow flourescent eyes...some probably saw me as a threat...others, food...

Neither was a good thing to be viewed as. I shook off the horrible thoughts of being torn to shreds by some wild animal, and tried to think of something happier. Nothing came to mind. Absolutely nothing. What was good about my situation? I was stranded in the middle of nowhere, without food or shelter...if I did make it back, I wouldn't be able to face anyone after the last incident...and worst of all, I was getting a horrible migraine...which meant I didn't have much more time to evade...him....

I buried my face in my hands and moaned. It just wasn't worth it anymore...the pressure was growing too great...

Then it came to me. How to solve it all. I reached for the large dagger in my belt slowly...it was the only way. My hand quivered over the handle, every fiber of my being was screaming no at me...but I had to do it...I couldn't let him kill anyone...never again...

The blade shimmered in the light as I pulled it out, and once again, I saw my terrified reflection in it...

It wasn't until then that I realized I was crying. Uncontrollably...hysterically....I didn't want to die! I would've liked to think I did, but I didn't. I couldn't do it. I dropped the knife and buried my face in my hands again, sobbing madly, feeling the tears creep between my fingers, feeling my body shaking...I felt so small and weak...so useless to the world...so alone...

...alone...I despised that word...

I must have cried for hours. But even so, when I lifted my head up again, it was still pitch black out...the fire had crackled to a small flame...I stared into it, thinking about what my life could have been like had I just accepted my fate so long ago...

"Malik-Sama...?"

I nearly leapt out of my skin. There was someone there with me, behind me. I turned around slowly, my heart racing in alarm...

I blinked, then sighed in relief when I saw who it was.

"Izumi...what are you doing out here?"

She shifted her feet uncomfortably.

"I came to find you...", she said," I was worried..."

Worried. About me. I did have a reason to live...

"Well then," I wiped off my face with the back of my hand and smiled, "Don't just stand over there where it's cold..."

She came hesitantly over to me and sat down, clicking off her flashlight.

"So how did you find me way out here?" I asked. She shrugged.

"I followed the smoke and light...and then I heard you..."

She didn't finish. We both sat there a long while, staring into the blazing fire, throwing some kindling in every time it went down. I slid an arm around her, and she sidled up to me quietly...

She was the first to break the silence.

"Why did you come out here all alone?" she asked. I just sighed. I couldn't tell her yet...

"Malik-sama?"

"Don't, Izumi...," I shut my eyes and shook my head slowly ,"Just don't..."

"Okay..." She looked away. There was disappointment and fear in her eyes. She was so worried about me...she could tell something was wrong. And I wanted to tell her...I wanted to. But I didn't want to worry her any more than she already was...

I reached out and moved her face to mine again.

"I'll tell you when the time is right...," I whispered, "it just isn't the time..."

She gazed at me, bewildered, then nodded hesitantly. I smiled at her.

"Thank you..."

We watched each other. Understood each other. Felt each other's emotions...

I slid my arms around her shoulders, and she did the same...

And we kissed.


End file.
